Following former Xbox COO Helen Chiang’s departure from the company, a former studio vice president, Shannon Loftis, has taken to social media to call out Microsoft for its leadership. In a LinkedIn post (via Twitter user Knoebel), Loftis said that the leadership of Xbox has been displaying a “loss of moral character” as well as a lack of clarity in its decisions.
“Team Helen all the way. The ‘leak’ itself (of false information, for what purpose? Let’s all speculate on who made THAT decision) shows the loss of moral character and ‘clarity’ in leadership at Xbox. A real leadership team would have relentlessly pursued the ‘leaker’ and taken appropriate action because ‘confidential personnel matters’ actually are bases for defamation lawsuits.
“It’s a clownshow up in there, and I feel terrible for anyone that still has to deal with it.”
Loftis is referring to rumors about Chiang’s departure that indicate that she may have been fired for some kinds of “policy violations”. These rumors popped up due to the fact that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Chiang’s departure quite abruptly, just a few months after she had been brought in to lead operations for the division. In a LinkedIn post of her own, Chiang addressed these rumors and went on to note that she wouldn’t “let speculation define my character”.
“I stand by my record: both the results I delivered and the way I have treated people throughout my career. I won’t let speculation define my character or erase that record.
“I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean something when they’re applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case, and I believe those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.”
Chiang was brought on to Xbox following Sharma’s plans to reset Xbox. Her arrival coincided with massive restructuring across the division, which involved cutting out several layers of management to streamline decision-making and game development processes. On the subject of Chiang, Sharma said that she would be accountable for the division’s end-to-end profits and losses.
“She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results,” said Sharma about Chiang.
Further in her statement, Sharma discussed the future of Xbox, which involves growing the company enough to make it a global competitor in the video games market. She also spoke about wanting to raise the company’s creative output as part of the process, which will involve investing in Xbox with “greater” focus, discipline, and clarity.
“The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we’ve seen before. This year, we’ll invest as much in Xbox as we ever have, but we’ll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making Xbox where the world plays and creates.”
For more on Xbox’s recent business decisions, take a look at Sharma’s announcement about around 1,600 job cuts, as well as the results of Microsoft’s most recent fiscal quarter.
